Black Bean Tacos with Feta Cheese

This is one I adapted from Smitten Kitchen after I saw it the other day. The original recipe uses canned black beans, but I’ve got dry on hand, so I had to cook those first.* As a warning, I didn’t really measure anything in this recipe, so amounts are estimates.

black beans (8 oz. dry)
1-2 Tbsps. olive oil
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. diced jalapenos
handful of cherry tomatoes
flour tortillas
crumbled feta cheese

Put black beans and oil in a medium-sized sauce pan and cover with several inches of water. Bring to a rolling boil and keep it going until the beans are softened (roughly 1 hour). Stir occasionally and add water if necessary. By the time the beans are cooked, they will also have a sauce with them.

Salt and pepper the beans to taste, add cumin and lemon juice. Mix in diced jalapenos. Cut the tomatoes up and stir them in, too. Put a few tablespoons of filling in a tortilla along with a teaspoon or so of crumbled feta.

I chose to toast the tacos a couple at a time on my countertop grill until the feta melted, and I ate them with a spinach side salad. Very tasty.

* Cooking the beans myself gave me a nice sauce with them, but as a possible time-saving measure, I might recommend mixing 1 15-oz. can of black beans with a 10-oz. can of diced tomatoes and green chiles (a.k.a. Rotel) as a substitution for the jalapenos and tomatoes.

Apple Harvest Pancakes

This tasty breakfast treat came about when I decided to modify the Bisquick pancake recipe my mom had traditionally used when I was growing up with a few special additions.

2 cups Bisquick mix
1/3 cup brown sugar*
2 eggs
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup milk**
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
1 apple, diced

Mix all ingredients except the apple in a bowl and stir until blended. Stir in the apple.

A couple of pancake-making tips for anyone unfamiliar with the procedure: Heat a griddle on medium-high; it’ll be ready to use when water sizzles when you splatter it on the surface. Use ~1/4 cup of batter per pancake and don’t try to flip the pancakes until the edges have curled up. Bubbles may or may not form at the edges; they’re also a good signal that it’s getting close to time to flip.

These pancakes are tasty by themselves or served with applesauce or maple syrup.

* You may want more or less brown sugar depending upon the sweetness of your applesauce.
** I grew up with thick pancakes like those in the photo, but if you like your pancakes thinner, feel free to add up to 1/2 cup milk more.

Butterscotch Cookies

We call these butterscotch cookies in my family, but they don’t really involve butterscotch per se. They are a holiday tradition–great right out of the oven or later with the hot beverage of your choice.

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter
2 eggs, well beaten
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup nuts (I prefer walnuts)
4 cups (all-purpose) flour

Cream butter and sugar, add beaten eggs. Sift cream of tartar and soda with 1 cup flour. Mix well. Add vanillia, nuts, and rest of flour. Form dough into a roll–be sure to put flour on your hands first, or you’ll get cookie dough all over your hands! Wrap roll in wax paper; place in the refrigerator until the dough is stiff enough to hold its shape while cutting. Slice the dough into 1/4-inch thick cookies and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

This recipe dates back at least five generations to my maternal great-great-grandmother who was a German Mennonite living in Nebraska. Today we’d call it a refrigerator cookie, but back then you formed the roll, left it covered on the back porch overnight, and baked in the morning!

Blueberry Dump Cake

Blueberry season is in full-swing, and, having made this a couple of times recently, I’ve been reminded of how yummy, easy, and popular the recipe is. So, for your enjoyment:

2-½ cups crushed canned pineapple, undrained (I typically substitute one large can of crushed pineapple)
3 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed
¾ cup sugar
1 (18-½ oz.) yellow cake mix, dry
½ cup butter, melted
1 cup pecans, chopped

Butter 13×9 in baking pan. Add in layers undrained pineapple, blueberries, sugar and dry cake mix. DO NOT STIR. Drizzle melted butter over cake mix; sprinkle with pecans. Bake at 350º for about 45 minutes.

The original recipe claims this makes 20 servings, but good luck getting anyone to abide by that portion!

Sloppy Joes

The following is Mark’s recipe, but I’m posting it here so that I can find it again later. So, from here on out, I’m quoting Mark:

1 lb hamburger
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 large green pepper, sliced
1 jar (30 oz) spaghetti sauce (I usually use sauce w/mushrooms)
hamburger rolls

Brown the meat, remove excess grease. Add garlic, onion, peppers, and spaghetti sauce. Cover and simmer on medium heat for 55 mins. Serve over rolls.

Obviously you can experiment with adding other things too. Mushrooms are good, and I think I’ve played around with adding small amounts of oregano and basil.

Mark

Scones

Hmm.  The new layout doesn’t attach names to posts.  This is Mark.

As an undergraduate, I didn’t do a lot of baking. It’s time-consuming, for one thing, but more importantly I’m not very good at it. My products are usually edible, but the cookies are always unevenly cooked and the pies have slightly burnt crusts and so on.  However, I had friends who were undergrad bakers, and so if you tend to have the usual baking supplies sitting around, it’s nice to have scones ready to eat with your tea or coffee.  (I’m moving to grad school in a couple months, and have already discovered that the town contains a small restaurant where they roast and sell their own exquisite coffee blends.  I am therefore looking for things to have with the coffee which I will no doubt be consuming by the gallon.)

This is a really good scone recipe — I’m not a fan of raisins or currants in my baked goods, so I had to look around for a recipe that didn’t call for them.  It’s really easy to make, too, and since I’m barely a mediocre baker you know that must be true.

Notes:

• I cheated and used about a teaspoon of lemon extract in place of the zest, which seemed to work pretty well — I can tell you from a prior experiment that dried lemon rind, such as you might find in the spice aisle, really doesn’t cut it.
• I’m used to cutting in butter with a pair of knives, but, as the author says, for this recipe I find I wind up using my hands to crumble the butter finer.
• I usually need to add a little extra cream to get the dough to cohere properly.  Have some standing by.
• You can cook this on or in practically any oven-worthy dish.  It doesn’t rise much, so even a flat, rimless cookie sheet works fine.
• This isn’t like the overgrown cookie-scones one finds in Starbucks.  It’s barely sweet at all, so, again as the author suggests, serve with lemon curd and clotted cream (if you can find any).  And, it goes without saying, some tea or coffee.

Thai Red Curry Chicken

This is something that we threw together last night based loosely on the back of a can, and it turned out fantastically. I don’t know if you’ll find Thai Kitchen products in your local grocery store, but I suspect that another brand’s products will do just as well.

1 lb. diced chicken
1 – 13.5 oz. can of coconut milk
4 teaspoons of Thai Kitchen red curry paste (or to taste)
2.5 Tablespoons of brown sugar
1 Tablespoon of Thai Kitchen fish sauce
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
your choice of rice

Cook chicken in a large saucepan. When chicken is finished, add coconut milk and red curry paste. Stir well and simmer for five minutes. Add remaining ingredients, stir, and simmer on medium heat for seven minutes. Serve with steamed rice.

Applesauce

Late fall is apple season, of course. Where I grew up, in the Appalachian Mountains, people would be outside making apple butter in large vats over open fires through October and November. I don’t have an apple butter recipe for you, but I do have applesauce, which is apple butter that didn’t quite make it. The recipe’s a little loosy-goosy because of my experience with the variability of apples, but it’s pretty easy to work out as you go.

Ingredients:

• 3 lb apples (~8-9 apples, if medium-sized)
• 1-2 cinnamon sticks, to taste
• 0.75 cup water, or apple cider if you have it
• <= 1 cup sugar (borrow from your next door neighbor if necessary)
• Ground cinnamon (optional)

Directions:

• Core and slice apples. Peel if desired. Cut into 0.5-in chunks.
• Place apples in large saucepan or pot. Add 0.5-0.75 cup water or apple cider, depending on juiciness of apples. Add cinnamon sticks and cook over medium heat until apples are soft and almost mushy, stirring frequently. (This may happen fairly rapidly or may take quite a while, depending on your apples.)
• Mash (with potato masher, a relic of a bygone era when the kitchen wasn’t tricked out like NASA Control in Houston) or blend to desired consistency — some people like chunky applesauce and some like smooth.
• Add sugar and ground cinnamon to taste and stir.

Notes:

• Joy of Cooking recommends seasoning with a small amount of mace. I advise against this as it only creates a bitter taste that requires more sugar to counteract.
• Be cautious when adding sugar or cinnamon. Some apples require no sugar at all. Ground cinnamon should be required only if the apples cooked down too rapidly to absorb enough from the cinnamon stick(s). A very little ground cinnamon goes a long way in any case — dust lightly, stir, and try again.
• If your applesauce lacks a tart zing, you can add a small amount — no more than a tablespoon — of lemon juice and stir it in to give it a little life.

Later, when I’ve worked out the recipe properly, I will try to share an applesauce cake recipe here — it’s a little dry and crumbly yet.

Chile Con Carne

2 pounds ground beef
2 cup chopped onion
1-1/2 cup chopped green pepper
2 cans (4 cups) tomatoes, broken up
2 cans dark red kidney beans, drained
2 8 oz. cans tomato sauce
2 teaspoons salt
3-4 teaspoons chili powder
2 bay leaf

In a stockpot, cook meat, onion and green pepper till meat is lightly browned and vegetables are tender. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Remove bay leaf. Makes eight servings.

Sesame Beef

1 pound beef boneless sirloin steak
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 green onions (with tops), finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablesoon sesame seed
3 cups hot cooked rice

Trim fat from beef steak. Cut beef diagonally across grain into 1/8 of an inch slices. (For ease in cutting, partially freeze beef, about 1-1/2 hours.) Mix sugar, soy sauce, pepper, onions and garlic. Put mixture with beef in a Ziploc bag and shake until well coated. Refrigerate a minimum of 30 minutes.

Cook and stir sesame seeds in 10 inch skillet over medium heat until golden brown; remove from skillet. Add beef to pan. Cook and stir beef in oil over medium-high heat until light brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Sprinkle with sesame seed. Serve over rice. 5 servings.

A nice and quick meal, especially if one marinates the meat beforehand.